Link to actual paper (preprint, that is): https://arxiv.org/abs/2104.14148
In the old days of USENET there was this signature saying something like "The proof that there is intelligent life elsewhere in the Universe is that they didn't attempt to contact us".
Given that It's easier to search in quieter wavelengths like 0.7 and 93 GHz. But is there anything on Earth 1) transmitting unique signals 2) in that range with 3) the kind of power that would survive the rigors of the journey through hundreds of light years?
What is our interstellar beaming frequency? At what power? Why else would there be any signals between 0.7 and 93 that aren't -300dB down? Radio waves spread. And scatter.
You're going to travel in the mountains in a remote region of a planet with no ionosphere. You want to eat your meals while listening to music. Do you take a shortwave radio or an FM radio?
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. We're looking for the lost keys under the streetlight.
> The galactic center, according to the scientists, “provides an ideal” central location for “advanced civilizations to place a powerful transmitter to efficiently send beacons across the entire Milky Way,” in what is yet another advantage to this strategy.
Can anyone comment on this? What is the idea of such a beacon?
Talking about SETI, have there been any publications related to SETI@home which ended last year?
To me a plausibile answer is that we can at least observe specific dynamics within our own life based world where we keep ants (based on dna like us) in a cage and they’re totally unaware they even are in a cage. For them that’s their universe. They go along and discover new things thinking in their own way why no other life form has contacted them. Even though we literally lift them using our hands. They simply think that’s a natural phenomenon.
To me it seems plausibile that other life forms that are probably not even based on dna are very likely to be imperceptible to us, the same way we are to ants.
Thus I’d like to think the universe is probably our cage and we’ll never possess the mental capacity to distinguish alien beings from actual natural phenomena.
One possibility is that if we are talking about biological life, it might not be possible for life from planet A to digest matter from planet B. After all terrestrial life has special enzymes and processes to deal with other terrestrial life.
In that case if you wanted to colonize another planet you’d have to look for an empty one, or you’d have to erase the whole native ecosystem and start over. Looking for an empty planet might be a lot easier, therefore expansionist civilizations might be specifically avoiding inhabited planets. Maybe?
Well, it seems pretty much certain that faster than light travel is impossible. Otherwise one of those 60 million would have been making noise of some kind.
Result: nothing found yet
How far away would one have to be before human radio signals would simply blend in with the background noise?
I've never understood the position that the greatest scientific question is whether or not we're alone in the universe. Given the number of stars out there, it seems wildly improbable that we are alone, and if we're not then it's anyway going to be basically impossible to communicate with them due to speed of light limitations.
P ?= NP is IMO way more significant for a start, to say nothing of questions about consciousness, fusion energy, ways to explore and colonise space, ...
Not to start a massive flame war, but just a personal opinion: I rather prefer humans to be the only intelligent species in the observable Universe - that means it will be all ours to play with.
I don't know if this is an original thought but it occurred to me that we might be in a cosmic proportioned "terrarium".
What better way to keep an intelligent species from escaping than limiting the velocity of information transfer and putting everything interesting at distances that are large multiples of the maximum velocity.
In other words, maybe the simulation architect doesn't want us to escape and find (contaminate) the other experiments? :)